It remembers where you'd got to! (BBC iPlayer)

Member Name: Midrange

Product:	BBC iPlayer
Date:	01/01/09 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Remembers where you stopped/paused the programme last time you watched, subtitles (sometimes)

Disadvantages: Randomly freezes - which is annoying but doesn't make it unusable

BBC iPlayer is a free service, accessed via the internet that allows anyone in the world to watch television programmes that have been broadcast on any BBC channel. The time for which programmes are available to watch is usually 1 week. The iPlayer service can therefore be used to "catch up" on TV you might have missed.

I have been using iPlayer for well over a year with varied success. It's easy enough to find the show you want to watch (the most popular shows are displayed on the iPlayer homepage). You can also search by genre, A-Z or by the programme name e.g. "Spooks". The actual player can be run in a small browser window or, as is my preference, in full screen mode. The sound and visual quality are of course lower than what you would expect on a television - but, in my opinion, perfectly adequate for watching.

The troubles start when the programme seemingly randomly refuses to stream - causing the show to just stop dead mid-sentence and freeze. Fortunately, the BBC have introduced a feature which allows the viewer to pick up from where they last left off. The best way to solve the annoying "random freeze" is to simply close the player, then open it again. I would say that we (being my wife and I) only experience the random freeze about 10% of the time... so not really too much of a problem. We're convinced it's not the fault of our internet connection, because we've never experienced streaming difficulties on other sites (e.g. YouTube, ITV catch-up, Slicethepie)

BBC iPlayer offers subtitles on *some* of it's programmes. As yet, I am not aware of any way of identifying which programmes will or will not have subtitles beforehand - it's just a case of open the player and hope that the "S" symbol is showing in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. I've looked on a few forums online and it would appear that the BBC don't have much of a "system" going yet for subtitles - it's just luck of draw. Sometimes "Spooks" will have subtitles, sometimes it won't. Subtitles do sometimes get added to programmes if you wait a few days... but as I said - no rhyme or reason to it.

Summary: Very useful service, I wish some programmes stayed up longer though

Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Noise:
Speed:
Variety of features: